


Once, a Married Man

by neichan



Category: Strike Back
Genre: F/M, Gen, Hints of het and slash, M/M, Multi, No Sex, Prank Marriage, Real Marriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-29
Updated: 2013-06-29
Packaged: 2017-12-16 14:33:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/863106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neichan/pseuds/neichan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scott and Stonebridge have more in common than one might think</p>
            </blockquote>





	Once, a Married Man

It is a major intelligence coup when Scott lets Section 20 know the message that Porter wanted to get across. Colonel Grant jumps on the information and sends in team one, meaning Stonebridge and newly conscripted (or is it shanghaied?) Scott, out to the Royal Lotus and into a messed up, nearly fatal cluster fuck. Scott hates it when the terrorists are competent. That Lotus Hotel mission sets the tone for all others to come. It is extremely rare to have a mission that goes along without a hitch, or two, or three. But if he is cornered, Scott will admit it is a fuck ton of fun, too. He feels useful again.

Grant is always driven, as if by a force 10 gale, deeply entrenched in the military mindset that Scott thought he'd left far behind. She barks orders, snarls at them, and all but tells them they fuck up, over and over. She is obsessed, which bears watching, because obsessed people are dangerous and make bad decisions. He wonders just what is behind the need to obliterate Latif, it is personal, it may be professional as well, but there is something deeply personal here that Scott doesn't know about. He wonders if anyone else here has a clue. 

Scott has adored women since he was 13, and studied them all his life. It had taken him a few more years to get lucky. He knows women. And Grant is riding the edge. She might fall left, or right. No one would know until it happened which side she'd land on or just how far that fall would be. And how far she would go it get the mission done. Only Stonebridge seems to get a little respect, not nearly enough. Scott is going to make damn sure that he doesn't end up falling with her. And he's starting to feel like it is his job to make sure Stonebridge doesn't go down with the ship, either. 

Ethics are not discussed in the Section 20 family. Not if you want to advance your career as more than a stores and requisitions clerk in BumFuck, Idaho or whatever similar place they had in Europe to threaten with. In the rain, in the snow, night shift, alone. In other words a fucktastic job that would pay the rent but wouldn't let you feel alive.

Special Forces is about learning the art of war, close engagement and covert ops so well that you became a weapon of war, an agent of whichever country, operating on foreign soil. Not only a soldier, but much more. Without going through it, it isn't quite possible to get it. Grant comes close, but she thinks she understands more than she does, when really she doesn't. Scott prefers his commanding officer know what the hell they are asking of him. Grant acts as if he and Stonebridge could hang the moon, if they weren't so damn lazy and actually had a work ethic. Yeah, she is that over the top.

Training can only do so much, it is insurance for when you don't have time to think, but not from everything, not from stupidity of strangers, or the need to rescue women and children that both men seem to suffer from. Or from pure chance. Near terminal cases of ridiculous heroism have no cure. 

They are both unable to accept compliments, Scott joshes it off and sometimes gets lucky when he looks like a sheepish and adorably fuckable boy, though he is past that by a long, long way. Stonebridge's face becomes grim, jaw locked against uttering the simple thank you another man might say. But one doesn't enter the Special Forces to be normal by any stretch.

Of all the people who team one has saved, only one has stayed in touch. The older woman who had been a hostage in Kosovo, who Stonebridge formed a deep bond with. They exchange phone calls, emails regularly. Scott is the only one who knows how close the two are, and the only one who isn't surprised. Michael's mother is gone, this woman is slipping into that role for the soldier and he will not tolerate questions about her, or the wisdom for forming such an attachment. Scott says nothing, there is no teasing, as gradually Michael tells Damien about their talks. 

Truth be told Scott misses having a family he can rely on, it's been a hell of a long time since he had one. When Stonebridge heads out to a lunch meeting with her, Scott manages to wheedle an invitation to go along. She is pleased to see them both, is a sharp and witty conversationalist, and is very fond of both of them. She also embraces them warmly at the end of the lunch. It is the best, Stonebridge is more stable once he's seen her. 

Afterwards, Scott is in no doubt that he hasn't enjoyed himself more in a long while. The way Michael is smiling is alien, but sincere. He truly cares deeply for this woman. The smile makes him look years younger. He accepts the honest affection she offers.

Grant naturally doesn't approve. Scott swears she resents any of her agents having outside associations of any and every kind. The expression on her face when she learned Kerry had left Michael was very close to satisfaction. As if an obstacle had been removed. She tried to hide it when Kerry was killed, but it was there, in her eyes as she looked on. Michael was a rock, showing no emotion, no reaction in public or at work. Scott didn't know what the other man did after hours. Maybe he screamed and cried over his wife then. But he wouldn't take that bet at any odds. 

The Colonel's reaction only makes Scott more cautious, more reluctant to take her word for anything. There is something not right, seriously wrong in section 20. The only person he trusts out of all of them is Michael. Anyone else he has to wonder and question each fact, they are all hiding their motivations. He takes absolutely nothing at face value. 

Sinclair and Grant both drop hints that they wonder about the code he developed with Porter. They are too impressed with the personal code and why Porter and Scott had their own way to tell each other anything. Grant wants to tear him apart, figure him out, analyze every fucking detail of the partnership. Scott would rather die than tell her the basis for the level of trust he had with John Porter. Porter is his now, no one else's.

The destruction of Stonebridge's marriage is just one more casualty of the kind of work they do. The Special Forces incursion teams more than any other members of section 20, have a near zero chance of a marriage surviving. They are first, married to their jobs, bound by duty, patriotic zeal and adrenaline to the missions that make their blood pump, that gives them purpose beyond an all day or all night screw with a woman he'll never see again. At least for Scott. 

Michael is different, Damien learns pretty quickly. At first he is sure that Stonebridge is a constitutionally faithful man, that he never touches and barely looks at any woman who is not his wife unless he's doing a threat assessment. Then, a few weeks in, Scott sees the look that his partner exchanges with Captain Kate Marshall. It hits him between the eyes. He wonders if Michael can fuck a woman he doesn't love. Loving two women, one of whom is your superior officer, the other your wife, is as messed up as relationships can get. But it does explain why Michael can walk away when his wife gives him the ultimatum. 

Stonebridge does not seem like the kind of guy who would consider a three way on a permanent basis. Kate would be open to it, she is desperate to hold onto the part she has. Kerry would not. The guilt and love just roll off the man, it is a second, huge problem to add to Grant, who is still problem number one in Scott's view. Michael's problem, Damien hasn't figured out, beyond it is eventually going to get them both killed if guilt continues distracting him. 

Kate and the bomb sever one psuedo-marriage, even if it wasn't on paper, even if it wasn't spoken of as such. The way that Michael is, Scott knows there is no better word for what Michael and Kate had. It nearly destroyed him. Scott is honestly amazed he still feels safe with Stonebridge guarding his back. But he does. 

After Kerry is gone the only anchor Michael has is Section 20. He is reeling from the loss. A double blow, Kerry and the baby, a life of unknown potential snuffed out. Scott has seen the printout of the ultrasound. Michael keeps it in his desk in the quarters they now live in. He gave up the house, no doubt it reminds him too much of his wife and her loss, a weight around his neck. Now he is a dozen steps from Damien, living in the pitifully small apartment that is away from the other family housing on the base. 

Naturally, they are rarely able to actually stay at the quarters. The missions come hot and heavy. Scott notices that Grant doesn't always follow the guidelines approved by Whitehall, he didn't miss it when Sinclair brought that up. She has a regrettable tendency to follow her own leads. The men on the teams are her pawns, and she's said it more than once, they are expendable if the mission demands it. 

Scott is not comfortable with that. His partner is not expendable. He feels strongly about that. He saw on the video of John being tortured and executed what happens when men are considered expendable. Grant and Sinclair are both still casting suspicious looks his way. It is royally fucked that he has no options other than to remain in section 20 for now. Luckily he actually likes Stonebridge. The man is a soldier's soldier. Scott would follow him into hell and back out. 

The revenge thing alarms Scott more than he says. He knows how it feels to want to get revenge, payback. It consumes you from the inside out, then turns around and digs in from the outside back in, until it eats through your entire being. If he finds out who was in that room of terrorists when John died there will be no way of holding himself back. Each man will receive the gift of a bullet to the brain. Simple and fast. Effective. 

Scott has his revenge organized, planned and stored up on the back burner. It will be ready when the time comes, when it is needed, otherwise he doesn't think about it. Stonebridge has lost two vital women far too close together, women who deserve to know as much as the dead can know, that their killers have been caught, made to pay. Above that, MIchael needs it, because he can't let it go. 

Scott has his plan and it is rational and he will take a great satisfaction when the tally is evened. When John, a damn good man and the best soldier he'd ever met, is avenged. Scott still watches the video. Someday he knows he won't have to. Until that day he watches, at times for John's face, sometimes he memorizes every last tiny detail of the terrorists in the room with him. 

Stonebridge is different. He is fury contained within, pure rage now, permeating every fibre of his being. You can feel it coming off his skin like a heat wave, you can smell it in every breath. A bomb waiting for a detonator, not necessarily a specific one, it might be anything that sets him off. Grant makes it clear Scott is supposed to handle Michael, his partner is his responsibility. 

Scott is impressed with her unapologetic transfer of future blame. If anything goes wrong, Damien knows he will face the criticism, not Grant. She's turned Michael over to him. Like a rattlesnake in gift wrap. She is a politician in fatigues. As much as he finds her a hell of an attractive woman, and he has visualized her, intensely vivid, with a strap on, in tight, body hugging latex, yet, it didn't take long for him to not want her to touch him, ever. If ever there was a woman who should have been born with a cock and more than metaphorical balls, Colonel Grant was one. She certainly knew how to fuck with him. 

Women wearing strap ons were one of his occasional kinks. There were a lot of things that could be read from that. Scott was a man who could be as alpha male as any other. But he was also more than willing to let a woman take him on, make him give up control, letting her take what ever she wanted. Damien liked to be the bottom boy from time to time, the recipient of a good ass fucking if his girl of the moment knew what she was doing. He didn't spread his preferences around at work of course, though they were nosy bastards, evidenced by the woman who Grant sent to sleep with him. They might know already. That really pissed him off. Private was private. But he wasn't ashamed. 

There was no non-frat policy enforced at Section 20. Grant realized that if she demanded 18-24 hour days, then the men and women working those hours would probably be the only ones available when a stress relieving bout of sex was needed. She certainly could not tolerate them going out and paying for it. 

Scott had different ideas. You did not shit where you ate, slept or worked. Bad things happened if you did. He had the scars to prove it. Back when bootcamp was a reality, he'd looked purely out of curiosity. The object of his gaze didn't appreciate the attention. A few more years of training under his belt and Scott would have wiped the floor with the big, rawboned kid. At the time he was still too green. Thirty-six stitches snaking down his arm later he was on light duty until he was cleared for more. Light duty meant he ran most of the day. While he couldn't hold a rifle, the sergeant stated there was nothing wrong with his legs. He ran the equivalent of a marathon every three days. His legs had ached more than the crudely repaired slice up his arm. Crazy colored sport's drinks became his best friends.

Porter had similar inclinations, but he'd been more deeply entrenched in the mindset of the ultimate soldier, not admitting to needing much of anything. Their buddies and fellow soldiers were surprised at first that the two of them got along. But Porter had a wicked sense of humor along with his terrifying competence. Every once in a while the man would do something that made Scott howl. Like that time, in the Netherlands, that insane 24 hours while they waited to go out on their next mission and probably die. At first it was a fuck-you to their superiors, to their respective services as a whole, but when the booze wore off neither one of them felt the need to fix their little crazy prank. 

Besides, they'd used their cover names, so no one knew, right? 

Scott slipped up one time, mentioning in passing that he'd been married. Stonebridge brought that up at a moment when Scott was more focused on getting out alive than keeping up appearances. He fucked as many women as would have him. Michael seemed surprised to find out he'd not been divorced. Any sane woman would have run for the hills seeing him coming. Scott wouldn't blame them, in fact he appreciated it. He was careful to pick women who had no time to get serious. Last thing he needed was a woman to latch on, decide he was marriage material, and then find out he was married already. 

Then it wasn't a problem any longer. Which was a huge problem.

Now, Scott had revenge on his mind.


End file.
